Belief

It's been exactly a month since I last posted.

Recently I discovered, or rather reaffirmed, some basic beliefs of mine.
I went to the National Catholic Youth Conference in Columbus, Ohio.
My purpose in going was to re-evaluate my faith, to strengthen it because I had been doubting it recently (and I love Ohio in autumn, the trees have acorns omg).
After five days of being away, my faith {in agnosticism} was, indeed, strengthened.

I felt uncomfortable there. Everything seemed shallow and like those participating were doing so for sheer tradition and habit, not because of a true faith. Most memorably, at the end of the Mass, there was a period of silence. Silence is pretty amazing for 20,000 teenagers and countless others all together at the same time. I looked around. Many people had their eyes closed, or their gaze was downwards, as though they were feeling something very spiritual. I wasn't into it. Then something came over me. "Maybe I do believe all this," I thought. I closed my eyes. What had come over me was the song "All That's Known" from the musical Spring Awakening. All my other thoughts vanished, and my head was filled with music, as loudly and clearly as it is on my ipod. I couldn't get rid of it until the silence ended.

. . . litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum, saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram,
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem . . .
arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque venit . . .

All that's known,
In History, in Science,
Overthrown
At school, at home, by blind men.

You doubt them,
And soon they bark and hound you-
Till everything you say is just another bad about you.

All they say
Is "Trust in What Is Written."
Wars are made.
And somehow that is wisdom.

Thought is suspect,
And money is their idol,
And nothing is okay unless it's scripted in their Bible.

But I know
There's so much more to find-
just in looking through myself, and not at them.

Still, I know
To trust my own true mind,
And to say: there's a way through this...

On I go,
To wonder and to learning-
name the stars and know their dark returning.

I'm calling,
To know the world's true yearning-
The hunger that a child feels for everything they're shown.

You watch me-
Just watch me-
I'm calling,
And one day all will know.

You watch me-
Just watch me-
I'm calling,I'm calling
And one day all will know.

Watch, next I'll become vegetarian.

How about some pictures from Ohio, hm? I didn't take these, but I feel obliged to post some pictures.


I'm in the red coat. I like how I'm looking away.
Motion.